


Where The Path Leads

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for episode 182, just a quiet moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: The sounds that mark the path are the rustling of wind through many branches, footsteps that aren’t his own, and whispering, unfamiliar voices. The latter two sounds have Grizzop moving cautiously, ears flicking to catch bits of conversations, but while this is an unfamiliar path, he’s more curious than concerned about where he’ll end up. There would be no path if his Lady did not wish it so, not here in Her own sacred space.The trees around him have been changing slowly, oak and ash and pine gently giving way to the gigantic flowering trees from which the blue petals are falling. The flowers themselves have a delicate fragrance, their petals drifting around Grizzop’s ankles, as soft as fallen snow. Up ahead there is sunlight. It’s not the golden warmth of Sasha’s remembered Rome, but something paler. Winter light.
Relationships: Azu & Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	Where The Path Leads

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write this for Goblin Week, but life got in the way, as life does. Better late than never.

There’s always something to hunt in Artemis’s sacred wood, for those of Her followers that come to it at the end of their lives. There are animals and birds of course. Some are sacred, untouchable, and those will never have cause to run from a hunter or leap away from their arrows. Other animals are created solely to be hunted, born swift and strong and clever, a true challenge to hunt, and who are reborn from their old bodies once they are finally brought down.

There are less tangible things to hunt as well. Every path in Artemis’s wood has to be discovered anew when one wishes to walk upon it, for the beginning of such paths are as elusive as the animals that run or fly through the perpetual moonlight and shadow. And while sight alone may reveal a path, other senses must be brought to bear to determine where it leads.

The path Grizzop is walking down now is not the path he had been hunting for, he knows that much. The path to where Sasha had ended up when her time among the living had been done was as hard to find as Sasha herself had been during the times when she hadn’t wanted to be found, as dark and slippery as greased shadows under a new moon, marked by the scent of wheat fields ripening in the sun and the sound of children laughing and training.

The path Grizzop had discovered instead, had been _drawn_ to, had been easy to find was as bright as sunlight on snow, scattered with flower petals that had looked as dark as blood in moonlight from a distance only to be revealed to be a shade of blue unlike any he had seen in the forest before. The sounds that mark the path are the rustling of wind through many branches, footsteps that aren’t his own, and whispering, unfamiliar voices. The latter two sounds have him moving cautiously, ears flicking to catch bits of conversations, but while this is an unfamiliar path, he’s more curious than concerned about where he’ll end up. There would be no path if his Lady did not wish it so, not here in Her own sacred space.

The trees around him have been changing slowly, oak and ash and pine gently giving way to the gigantic flowering trees from which the blue petals are falling. The flowers themselves have a delicate fragrance, their petals drifting around Grizzop’s ankles, as soft as fallen snow. Up ahead there is sunlight. It’s not the golden warmth of Sasha’s remembered Rome, but something paler. Winter light.

_You do not have to go further._

That is not one of the strange whispers on the wind. The words in Grizzop’s ears and mind and heart are moonlight given a voice. His Lady speaks seldom, preferring the sounds of Her wood to speech, but Grizzop would have recognized Her voice even if She had never spoken to him before. He stops walking to give Her words the consideration they are owed and feels something gently pulling at him, urging him forward. Need, but not his own. The desire of someone who misses him.

Grizzop looks up towards the moon, bright and shining and full. He had never been able to deny someone in need while he had been alive. Death has not changed that about him. “Thank you for the choice, my Lady,” he says, though for him it is no choice at all. When he takes his next step he feels a breeze at his back, affirmation and assurance as he crosses over from Her moonlit wood into the flowering grove.

There’s someone walking next to Grizzop, and he knows that long and heavy stride, knows the armor clanking gently in his ear will be pink and glowing like a summer sunrise, totally useless for stealth. But then, that role in the pack had been his and Sasha’s, once upon a time. Azu’s strength had been, well, _strength._

“Azu?” Grizzop has to crane his neck to look up at her, just like always. She looks the same as the last time he had seen her, back in Rome before everything had gone wrong. “Azu, can you hear me?”

Azu doesn’t react to the sound of his voice, and that confirms that she isn’t dead at least, that this grove isn’t some sort of afterlife like his or Sasha’s. Then again, he should have guessed that already. He’s sure that any garden of Aphrodite would be more pink. That and he can feel the passage of time heavy on his skin in a way he hasn’t felt since he’s been alive. Whatever sort of place this is, it’s a mortal one, though there’s a feeling of sacredness to it as well.

“Azu?” Grizzop tries again, just in case, and reaches up to try and take her hand. There’s a feeling of resistance, pressure, a barrier that he can’t quite cross, even though he could swear his skin is touching hers.

“…Grizzop?” Azu’s gasp is so quiet that if he hadn’t been so close to her, he might not have heard it. Her head whips around to look at him, and he begins to grin before he realizes that Azu’s gaze isn’t quite meeting his. Her eyes shine as if she’s on the verge of tears, and Grizzop feels her need for him wrap around him like the hugs she had always been so free with.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” He says it even though she still doesn’t react to the sound of his voice. After all, she’s clearly perceiving he’s here _somehow_. Maybe it’s some sort of paladin of Aphrodite empathy thing and she’s picking up the emotions underlying his words and thoughts. He doesn’t think he has time to wonder about it now. Instead, just like the old days, he scrabbles up her armor and sits on her shoulder, taking in the view.

For the first time he realizes there are other people walking with them, walking in pairs, one gently glowing spirit form next to each solid, living one. The only person he recognizes is Hamid, looking a little more dragon-y then he remembers, walking next to his sister, Aziza, who shines like she never left the spotlight. They’re both humming, and Grizzop wonders if Hamid knows that he’s humming the same song his sister is.

“Glad you two made it out okay,” Grizzop says, resting one arm on the top of Azu’s head. He feels relaxed and at ease, as if he’s just had a long and successful hunt. “Looks like you’ve got some new people to run around with. Still working on the whole simulacrum thing or is this something else?” He looks ahead, eyes narrowing slightly. “That’s not Wilde up there, is it? Hard to tell from the back. Can’t be. You and Hamid don’t look like you’ve aged a day, there’s no way Wilde’s old enough for white hair. Unless things went weird with time on your end too.”

Azu doesn’t answer of course, but her shoulder shifts underneath him, armor clinking slightly as the muscles underneath relax. That feels… right, like it’s the reason he’s here, to bring comfort to her somehow.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Grizzop tells her after a long moment. “I know you can’t hear me, but you can feel what I’m saying or something, right? It wasn’t your fault, what happened. I know you think it was, because I _know_ you, but it wasn’t.”

Azu reaches up, hand resting over where Grizzop’s right leg is, over her heart. Grizzop can’t feel it, exactly, but he remembers a time when she had first done that, back in Cairo during those long hours looking for Sasha after she had run away.

“Do you even know where we ended up? Sasha said she left you a letter explaining everything. She… she had a good life, Azu. Not an _easy_ life, but you know Sasha, she would have been bored by that. It was a good life, good and long in a way she had never dared let herself imagine. The sacrifice I made for her, I don’t regret it. How could I?”

“I miss you,” Azu says softly, as if in response. Grizzop lets out a little sigh and leans against her a little more heavily.

“Miss you too.”

The breeze that blows suddenly against him shouldn’t be strong enough to dislodge him from Azu’s shoulder, yet somehow Grizzop finds himself falling. He lands on his feet, death not having robbed him of training or instincts, and isn’t at all surprised to see that he’s back in his goddess’s woods, surrounded by familiar trees, the path gone.

“I wonder what that was about,” Grizzop says. He’s not going to question it further. Maybe someday, hopefully not soon, hopefully not for a long time, he’ll find a path strewn with pink petals that leads to a garden, or a city surrounded by sand, or to a mountain farm. Then he can ask her all the questions he likes. Maybe he’ll even ask for a hug.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m [angel-ascending](http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr and [angel_in_ink](http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink) over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
